


The Best By Far Is You

by doctormccoy



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Bottom!Bucky, Canon Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death and Resurrection, Explicit Consent, Exploration of Sex, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Intimate Friendships, M/M, Off Screen Minor Character Death, Pining, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Protective Bucky Barnes, Recovery, Stubborn Steve Rogers, Stucky Secret Santa 2014, Time Skips, love making
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-02 21:32:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2826815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctormccoy/pseuds/doctormccoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky’s six years old when he falls in love with a fair haired boy with eyes that shine like the stars and a smile brighter than the summer sun on a cloudless day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Through All The Things My Eyes Have Seen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WaterandWin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaterandWin/gifts).



> Alternatively titled "The Five Times Bucky Saves Steve and the One Time Steve Returns the Favor". Now with bonus epilogue chapter.
> 
> Actual title from ["Cecilia and The Satellite"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tYya_LOPEw) by Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness.
> 
> I also recommend ["Strong"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6drfp_3823I) by London Grammar, if you want to cry while reading certain parts of this story.
> 
> It was hard choosing which five situations I wanted to write about since it's more like the Five Hundred Times Bucky Saved Steve but here you have it.
> 
> "Through all the things my eyes have seen,  
> The best by far is you."  
> 

He’s six years old when he stumbles upon a fair haired boy with eyes the color of rain squaring off against a trio of kids easily twice his age. Bucky’s not sure if it’s the way the boy flings himself back into the fray despite the shaking in his knees or the defiant set of his jaw that makes him move. 

All he knows is suddenly he’s landing a punch right on Louis Hornsby’s fat nose and screaming for them to go away. He gets a split lip and a black eye for his trouble but the kids take off and Bucky’s left standing there with the strange boy, trying to figure out why on earth he’d even picked that fight to begin with.

“You didn’t need to do that. I had ‘em on the ropes,” the boy snaps, somehow managing to sound gruff around a bloody nose. Bucky huffs out an amused laugh and shakes his head, sitting down heavily on the dirt to inspect his scraped up knees.

“’Course you did. Just didn’t want to let you have the glory of victory all to yourself is all,” Bucky hums, trying to brush the sand and grit from the bloody cuts. He pauses when a hand invades his line of sight and arches an eyebrow at the skinny little boy in front of him before he shrugs and accepts it, letting himself be hauled back up onto his feet by a surprisingly strong grip.

“Name’s Steve Rogers,” the boy with eyes like the sky tells him. 

Bucky grins and claps an arm around his shoulder, walking with Steve towards the bathroom so they can clean themselves up before they go home and get the tar taken out of them by their respective families. 

“James Barnes, but friends call me Bucky.”

Steve looks up at him and smiles like the sun and Bucky knows he’s already so gone on this little scrap of a human being that there’s probably no coming back. 

“Can I call you Bucky?” Steve asks, wincing when Bucky squeezes his shoulders and shakes him slightly against his side.

“Isn’t that what I just said?” he teases, tipping his head curiously when he sees Steve’s hands are clutched against his chest. 

“What’s that you got?”

Some part of Bucky isn’t all that surprised to see the dirt encrusted frog cradled in those skinny fingers when Steve cautiously pulls them back for him to see. 

“They were gonna kill him and he ain’t done nothin’ to them to deserve it except exist,” Steve grumbles and Bucky can tell there’s a story behind that. He wants to spend the rest of his life trying to find out what it is. 

“So you picked a fight with three boys twice your size to save a frog?” Bucky asks, taking the animal from his cupped palms and frowning at it intently. Steve shrugs and scuffs his toe through the dirt, staring determinedly at anything but Bucky.

“I don’t like bullies. Doesn’t matter who they’re hurting.”

Bucky’s six years old when he falls in love with a fair haired boy with eyes that shine like the stars and a smile brighter than the summer sun on a cloudless day.

\-------------------------

Bucky’s fifteen years old when all the light in the world seems to disappear in the ragged wheezing of a too skinny boy with eyes clouded by illness and a smile that can’t form around the chest aching cough he just can’t shake.

“Is he gonna be alright?” he desperately asks Sarah Rogers, his eyes tracking her every move around the tiny apartment as she tries to come up with any sort of solution to ease the uneven gasping of her suffering child. She’s tired when she looks back at Bucky, who has become almost like a second son to her in the years he and Steve have been best friends, and reaches out to rest a hand on his shoulder, trying to soothe him despite the heavy ache of fear in her own belly.

“I don’t know, James. It came on so quickly this time I didn’t have the chance to pick up his medicine before the storm hit,” she admits, staring past him to the snow whipping past the window. One of the worst New York had seen in years and it couldn’t be more poorly timed.

Bucky swallows thickly and turns his head to watch the shallow rise and fall of Steve’s skinny chest beneath the blankets, taking in the sweaty, sallow pallor of his skin and the dark bruises shadowing eyes that once shone like sunshine. 

“But if he had his medicine then he would get better?”

Sarah pauses for a second and smiles faintly, reaching out to grasp at Steve’s thin hand and squeezing it gently between her own.

“I’m sure he’ll be fine, James. Steve’s strong and once the storm clears up then I can get him his medicine and he’ll recover, just like he always does.”

Bucky’s tense as his eyes flit between the heartbreak on Sarah’s face and the swirling snow outside the window, his foot tapping out a rapid rhythm while the wheels turn in his mind. Steve needed his medicine. If he got it then he would be okay. The only thing standing between Steve and safety was the storm raging outside.

“Screw that.”

Sarah’s head whips up to see Bucky jamming his feet into his boots and yanking the laces tight, grabbing for his scarf and hat even as she crosses the room to try and prevent him from leaving.

“James, you can’t go out in this blizzard, I won’t allow it,” she orders in her best Mom Voice, unsurprised when she receives a steely stare in return from the boy who has grown up so fast in the past ten minutes.

“I’m not asking you to allow it. I’m goin’ whether you like it or not,” Bucky growls, taking Steve’s worn gloves from his coat pocket and pulling them onto his own hands. 

Sarah hesitates, clearly unsure as to what she should do here, and Bucky sighs, tugging the scarf up so that it will protect most of his face.

“You said that if Steve gets his medicine then he’ll get better.”

Sarah nods mutely and Bucky shrugs, tightening his coat around himself.

“Then I’m goin’ to get him his medicine and there’s nothing and no one in this world or the next that’s gonna stop me.”

The silence is tense between them before she finally sags in surrender, stepping back from the door so Bucky can get to it. He accepts the crumpled dollars she stuffs into his pocket and smiles from behind the woolen scarf when she tugs his hat down to cover his ears. 

“You be careful out there, James Buchanan Barnes. You hear me? Your Mother won’t ever let me hear the end of it if you get hurt actin’ like some big shot going out into a storm for my boy,” she says firmly, pulling him in for a quick hug. 

Bucky laughs and wrinkles his nose in mock protest when she squeezes him to her chest, giving her a mock salute in the doorway.

“I promise I’m gonna be back. One hour, two tops if I decide to stop for penny candy on the way home.”

The wind hits Bucky like a ton of bricks, punching the air from his lungs in a blast of ice and fear. He thinks perhaps Sarah was right after all and it was stupid for him to go out in the middle of a blizzard when it would surely all by over by the next morning.

Bucky conjures up memories of eyes the color of cotton candy sticking to pale lips. Of a day spent at Coney Island and a smile bigger than the moon as they splash through the salty ocean waves. 

It keeps him warm as he trudges step by step through the thick, wet snow, his arms hugged tight around his middle and his eyes focused on the ground in front of him. The wind tore through his clothing as if it wasn’t even there and there’s an ache in his bones like nothing he’d ever felt.

Five more steps, a laugh like the first few notes of Bucky’s favorite song. 

Ten more steps, pale, skinny fingers always smudged with ink and charcoal curled around Bucky’s wrist. 

Twenty more steps, the feeling of Steve’s skinny body against his own on those rare occasions Steve let Bucky hug him. 

He’s shivering and soaked to the bone when he finds his way home to Steve, teeth chattering behind blue lips and eyes hollow with exhaustion. Sarah looks ready to cry with relief when he holds up the snow encrusted bag from the pharmacist’s, though, and she strips him of his wet things with the efficiency of a Mother, shoving Bucky in front of the fire place with a blanket and a mug of coffee before she turns to give Steve the medicine he needs.

Bucky stays by the fire until she finally leaves to sleep for a few hours, making sure she’s really gone before he stands and goes to where Steve is sprawled out on the couch, fingers trembling as they spread across his skinny chest. The wheezing has eased and there’s a healthy pinkness to Steve’s cheeks that hadn’t been there earlier. His fever has broken and Bucky wants to sob with relief at the steady thud of Steve’s heart beneath his palm, sinking down so that he’s kneeling beside the couch, head resting against his chest so he can feel the gentle rise and fall of his breathing .

Bucky’s fifteen years old when he realizes he never wants to live in a world without a fair haired boy named Steve Rogers with eyes like the ocean and a smile warmer than a spring breeze.

\-------------------------

Bucky’s twenty four years old when that smile disappears behind the clouds of loss and grief and takes all the joy from his heart.

“When are you going to go home, Buck?” Steve asks quietly from the kitchen table, picking listlessly at the largely untouched plate of rice and beans Bucky had set before him nearly twenty minutes ago, looking up at him like he’s annoyed that Bucky has the nerve to give a shit. 

It’s been three weeks since Sarah Rogers died and Bucky has refused to leave Steve’s side, shoving his way into the apartment when Steve refused to come stay with him after the funeral. 

“When you agree to come with me, Stevie,” Bucky says, repeating the same answer he always gives whenever Steve asks this question, staring over the top of his newspaper at the younger boy with a raised eyebrow. He’d been pinching his pennies and nickels for years to save up for an expensive new suit for going out. Now those hoarded coins were being used to pay for Steve’s rent and food while Bucky takes leave from work to keep an eye on his hurting best friend. He cajoles Steve into trips to the deli and ice cream parlor, dragging him to the art museum and the book store. Anywhere he remembers seeing Steve filled with light and life. 

Steve shoves the plate away from himself and folds his arms over his chest, which has gotten even skinnier in these past few weeks of self imposed neglect, despite Bucky’s best efforts to make him eat. 

“Why are you doing this, Bucky? Why can’t you just leave me alone?” Steve demands and this time Bucky lowers the newspaper entirely, folding his hands on top of it. 

“You know why, Steve.”

He flinches when Steve slams his hands down on the table and stands up, coming around the side so he can grab at fistfuls of Bucky’s shirt and yank him up onto his feet, a snarl on his face that Bucky doesn’t ever remember seeing aimed at him before now.

“No I don’t so why don’t you enlighten me?” Steve hisses, shoving Bucky back and landing a punch square in the middle of his chest. It hurts like hell but Bucky refuses to fight back, raising his hands in surrender even as Steve hits him again.

“Is it because you think I can’t take care of myself? Is it because you think I’m weak, Buck? That I can’t get by without my Mom here to look after me all the time?”

Bucky says nothing as Steve socks a solid punch against his jaw, his chest aching from more than just the bruise on his skin as more hurt, ugly words pour from the smaller man. 

“I don’t need you here, Bucky! I don’t need you watchin’ my every move like I’m about to just.. just _fall apart_ because I’m not. I’m fine, I’m just fine on my own and I don’t need you!”

He shoves Bucky hard and Bucky loses his balance, groaning when he hits the back of his head against the counter on his way down, legs sprawling out across the wooden floors and the taste of blood in his mouth. He looks dazedly up at Steve from behind the fringe of his bangs and reaches up to rub at the back of his head, confused at the streaks of red on his fingers when he pulls his hands back. 

Instantly all the fight goes out of Steve and he’s crowding up into Bucky’s space, straddling his lap to get a look at the cut in his scalp, fingers careful as they probe at the bloody gash. 

Bucky doesn’t even feel the pain of the physical wound around the gaping hole in his chest, reaching out to wrap his arms around Steve’s waist and tug him close enough to hide his face in his throat, already apologetic that he’s getting blood on his clothing. 

“I’m here ‘cause I love you and I can’t stand to see you hurting like this,” Bucky whispers against his skin, tightening his arms when Steve tries to pull away. 

“‘Cause I’ll do anythin’ to make you happy again, even if it’s goin’ away and never coming back, Stevie.”

Steve’s hand is gentle as it pets through the tangled mess of Bucky’s hair and Bucky can feel the dampness of tears against his forehead even if he can’t see them. 

“How could I ever be happy if you go away? You’re all I got left, Buck,” Steve murmurs and hope flares in Bucky’s chest that maybe, just maybe, he can stay with Steve forever. 

“I just wanted to see you smile. There’s no joy in the world if you ain’t in it,” Bucky breathes, sliding his hands up the twisted curve of Steve’s back, desperate to touch while he was still allowed. 

This time he lets Steve draw back just enough to bump their foreheads together, shivering at the small, watery smile that spreads across pale lips. 

“You make me want to smile even when I feel like there’s nothing left on earth to be happy about,” Steve admits and Bucky can feel the ghost of his words against his own lips with how close they are. 

There’s silence between them for a long while as they sit there entwined together like there was no one else in the world that mattered, Steve’s fingers buried in Bucky’s hair and Bucky’s arms curled tight around Steve’s waist.

“Did you mean it when you said you didn’t need me, anymore?” Bucky asks him finally, feeling betrayed by the way his voice breaks at the end. Steve shakes his head and presses so close their noses are slotted together, mouths barely inches apart now. 

“I’ll always need you, Buck. Where would I be without this stubborn jerk around to tell me when I’m being an ass?” Steve sighs, cradling the back of Bucky’s skull. 

It feels more intimate than any sexual encounter Bucky’s experienced in his entire life and they aren’t even doing anything more than sharing air. He can feel the brush of Steve’s eyelashes against his skin and wants to memorize the tickle of it. He swears to every God listening that he doesn’t ever need anything else in his lifetime if only they would let this moment go on into eternity.

“Probably getting your punk ass beaten up in some alleyway.”

The spell that had settled over them is broken and Steve draws back with a ragged laugh to stare at Bucky in wonder, his face still streaked with tracks of wetness.

“I’d be a bloody mess of broken bones if you weren’t around to swoop in like some damn hero and save the day every time I needed the backup, yeah?” Steve sniggers, planting his hand over Bucky’s face when the older boy gives him a cocky grin. 

“I don’t know about that hero nonsense but, yeah, it’s usually helpful to have backup when you pick a fight with men twice your size,” Bucky teases from around Steve’s palm, reaching up to grab his skinny wrist and pull it away. Steve is smiling at him like he hung the stars in the sky and Bucky remembers the tale of Icarus, chasing the bright light of the sun. 

He cups his hand against Steve’s cheek and wipes away the lingering tears, his expression warm with fondness.

“You gonna come home with me, Stevie?” Bucky asks softly and Steve cocks his head to the side, studying him for several heart stopping minutes. 

“Yeah, okay, Buck. I’ll come home with you.”

Bucky’s twenty four years old when he finally kisses the boy with sapphire eyes and a smile like the first breath of sunshine on a rainy day.

\-------------------------

Bucky Barnes is twenty eight years old when a man with eyes that see for miles and the frown of someone who has seen too much death to remember how to smile turns to him and explains the mission they’re about to embark on.

Through his drug induced dreams of days spent at Coney Island and shy, unsure hands in his hair there’s a stranger ripping him free of cursed bonds. A stranger with a familiar voice and an unfamiliar bearing, half carrying him through a Hydra facility without breaking a sweat. 

The man everyone calls Captain America shares his smiles with a beautiful woman named Peggy Carter. She’s a perfect match for the wartime hero Steve has become, strong and smart as a whip with the stubborn will to match. 

Bucky doesn’t mention the aching chill that seems to permeate his body ever since the return from Arnim Zola’s lab. If he did then they would force him into leaving for a more thorough medical examination. It would take Bucky from Steve’s side and the idea of being separated from him hurts more than the sleepless nights and seemingly endless hunger ever could. 

“Any questions?” the man called Steve Rogers asks and Bucky plasters on a cocky smile, shrugging and looking out across the frozen wasteland before them.

“Yeah. Is this revenge for that time at Coney Island when I made you ride the Cyclone until you puked?” 

Steve laughs and the music of it is like a balm to Bucky’s soul. The ghost of a smile like the sun trying to peek out from between the clouds flashes across Steve’s face and Bucky allows himself this one moment to bask in it. To soak it up like a man starved of the light.

“Now why would I do that, Buck?”

Bucky reaches up for the metal T-Bar of his ride down the mountain with palms that are sweating beneath the thick wool of his gloves, wondering if it’s too late to change his mind. Steve turns around and looks at him one more time and there’s something about the stubborn glint in his eyes that reminds Bucky of Sarah Rogers and a blizzard and the weak wheezing of a boy that was their entire world.

“Hey, Buck? Try not to do anything stupid and get yourself killed. I know how much you like those dramatic antics of yours,” he says finally, earning a scoff of laughter from the other man.

“I’m the dramatic one here? If you remember I actually wore a parachute the last the time we jumped out of a plane,” Bucky shoots back, aiming a kick at Steve’s backside that’s easily dodged. 

Steve snorts and shakes his head, turning back to watch the train as it rounds the corner of the mountain. 

“Just be careful, you dumb jerk.”

Bucky sobers up and clears his throat, planting his feet more firmly into the snow. 

“You too, you damn punk.”

When Bucky falls from the train the last thing he remembers thinking is the twisted look of sorrow seems so out of place on Steve’s face. 

He dreams of sunshine and wings of wax and feather carrying him higher than he ever dared to fly. 

And then there’s nothing but darkness. 

Bucky Barnes is twenty eight years old when the last thing he sees is eyes like a waterfall filling with grief.

\-------------------------

The Asset is ninety seven years old when the careful, structured order of his universe falls to pieces around him in the collapsing iron and steel of the helicarriers he had been ordered to protect. There’s a man standing opposite him with eyes like freedom and a forlorn smile shaped around an emotion the Asset does not understand.

The Asset watches him fall and feels an inexorable grief from a place inside of him he did not know still existed. 

Betraying all logic the Asset releases his grip on the helicarrier and falls, distantly recalling a pair of eyes dark with sorrow and another long fall towards the unknown. 

He drags the Target from the water and drops him onto the soggy sand, shivering with despair at the silent face of a boy who haunts his dreams, not moving. Not breathing. 

He jerks away when the boy who has become a man chokes up the water he swallowed and his chest begins to rise and fall with steady, even breaths. 

It feels wrong to leave him on the side of the river but the Asset can’t stay. Not yet. 

He breaks into the house of a vacationing couple and sheds the familiar layers of the Winter Soldier that have become like a second skin to him. The metal plating of his bionic arm whirs as he forces his shoulder back into place, barely blinking at the steady throb of pain. 

It’s hardly noticeable compared to the ache in his chest when he thinks of the man with eyes like a treasured memory and the way his mouth formed around words that had shaken the Asset to his very core.

“I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.”

The Asset contemplates them over a cold can of beans seated beneath a highway underpass, allowing himself the luxury of studying the shine of the stars overhead for the first time in seventy years. 

James Buchanan Barnes is ninety seven years old when a boy with eyes like the sky on a crisp winter morning and a smile he wants to taste catches up to him. 

Steve finds him because Bucky no longer wishes to run. 

“You’re really here,” Steve says breathlessly from beside the bench where Bucky is sitting, his breath steaming in front of him. Bucky looks up from the small gathering of birds he had just been feeding and leans back against the wooden slats, studying the desperate looking man standing before him, drenched in sweat from running the entire four miles from the parking area to where Bucky had called and said he would be waiting. 

“I promised I would be,” he replies, cocking his head to the side in silent invitation. Steve sinks down onto the chilly bench next to Bucky as the birds take off with squawking dismay, and stares at him, unable to tear his gaze from Bucky as if afraid he would disappear if he looked away for even an instant. 

“You saved my life,” Steve murmurs, keeping his hands on his lap as he and Bucky stare at one another but clearly itching to reach out and see for himself if Bucky is really here after all. 

Bucky purses his lips at that and very, very carefully lets his thigh brush against Steve’s on the park bench. The heat of that tiny bit of contact spreads through his entire body and warms him from the inside, like the first mouthful of coffee in the morning. 

“There was no color or light in the world after Hydra took you from me. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing it again when I only just got it back,” Bucky admits in a quiet voice, twitching at the shy brush of Steve’s pinky finger against his skin. He carefully spreads his own fingers so that Steve can slot their hands together, his heart thudding in his chest in a way Bucky has come to associate with being near Steve. 

Steve leans in to brush their foreheads together and there are lines at the corners of his eyes that Bucky doesn’t remember. He’s sure there’s a story behind every single one. He wants to spend the rest of his life trying to find out what they are. 

“You ready to come home with me, Buck?” Steve asks him quietly and Bucky can feel a hand threading through his hair to cup the back of his head.

Bucky closes his eyes and lets out a soft, shaky sigh, the tension of months spent in self-imposed isolation and fear bleeding away at the gentle brush of Steve’s lips against his own as they share breath, like two halves finally becoming whole again.

“Yeah, Stevie. I’m ready.”

Bucky is ninety seven years old when he leans the rest of the way in to kiss a boy with eyes that are full of an emotion that Bucky knows now is love and a smile that tastes like finally coming home.


	2. For All The Things My Hands Have Held

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky loves Steve just as much at ninety eight as he did at six; but that love is different now because Steve is the sun and Bucky was once just a boy with fragile wings of wax and feather who has since become a man, soaring higher than ever on wings of bone and steel, made stronger by his love for the warmth and light of a distant shining star.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "For all the things my hands have held,  
> The best by far is you."
> 
> This has been gnawing at me since Monday to be written, so I wrote it as an unintentional bonus epilogue. Note the change in rating and added tags. 
> 
> Merry Christmas everyone.

James Buchanan Barnes is ninety eight years old when he finds himself staring up at eyes like the ocean and a smile curving soft on lips he knows better than his own name.

“It’s okay, Stevie. I can take it,” he whispers, sighing at the blunt pressure against his insides and the low burn of arousal that’s settled into the pit of his belly. 

Bucky has been living with Steve since that frozen winter morning spent on a park bench with fingers entwined and foreheads pressed together, soft words exchanged that held so much meaning to a man who no longer had a purpose. He had been broken and lost but Steve was his shining north star with gentle eyes that made him feel like he belonged and a smile that invited Bucky in. 

Steve buys them a place in Brooklyn that feels like home not for its familiar location but because Steve is there to invite him through the doorway. A small but cozy space that fits them both like a glove. 

Bucky tips his head back with a low, ragged moan when Steve leans down to kiss his throat, skin damp with heat and sweat and desire. This isn’t the first time Bucky has asked Steve to take him to bed. He’s learning how to want again, how to give into that voice in his mind that invites him to be selfish. With Hydra he was not allowed to want for anything, not even food or rest. 

With Steve it’s as familiar as the gentle glide of a mouth against his own and the press of fingertips into angular hips. 

He learns to want again through the silent tip of his head in search of a kiss and the heat of Steve’s body curled up behind him, holding him through nightmares and memories of a life Bucky never asked for.

Bucky heals and Bucky remembers what it’s like to be alive a little more each day. 

The first time he asks Steve to take him to bed he breaks down before they even finish undressing, unable to face the truth of what he really is in the exposed wreckage of scar twisted skin. Bucky is a weapon that serves no other purpose but to kill and maim. 

Steve lays him down and kisses every single dark knot and ripple of violence hardened flesh until Bucky is silent and crying beneath him. They spend the rest of the day entwined on top of the sheets and Bucky remembers what it is to feel cherished. 

The second time he asks Steve to take him to bed he stutters his way to release with Steve’s mouth on his cock but quails at the concept of returning the favor, his fingers trembling as they wrap around hard flesh. Steve stops him with gentle kisses and reassuring words that he doesn’t need more than what Bucky is able to give and Bucky remembers what it is to feel respected.

The third time he asks Steve to take him to bed he makes Steve come so hard he goes limp beneath him, panting soft assurances of love against Bucky’s ear as he cradles him to his chest and Bucky remembers what it is to feel desired.

Bucky is ninety eight years old when he asks Steve to take him to bed without fear and invites him in, opening up beneath the younger man like it’s something they’ve always done. 

They never shared much intimacy before Bucky’s fall from grace on wings of wax and feather, fearful of the consequences that came out of a love like theirs. Whispers of police raids and public sanctioned alleyway violence against anyone who was even a little bit different. Both men were content with careful touches and secretive kisses behind closed doors because a life of abstinence was easy compared to a life without each other. 

“Want you to move, Stevie, please,” Bucky gasps into sweat slick blond hair, strong thighs curling around narrow hips to try and pull him impossibly deeper inside. It felt so right when Steve slid into Bucky that the ache and burn of penetration couldn’t be anything but pleasurable. Like a puzzle piece lost in a dark corner for years only finally being slotted into place where it belongs. 

“Yeah, Buck, just- Gimme a sec or it’ll be over before we even begin,” Steve whispers breathlessly against his ear and Bucky laughs, an action that had once been so foreign before he’s saved from amongst the wreckage of his broken wings. Sex with Steve is a lot of things but ‘fun’ is always that odd little word Bucky never expects to cross his mind each time they end up in bed together. 

Steve laughs with him, a warm rumbling purr of sensation that Bucky can feel with how closely their bodies are entwined. Cool metal fingers slide down Steve’s spine to squeeze at the generous muscle of an ass cheek, teasing in their attempt to try and grind Steve a little further between Bucky’s spread legs. 

“Hurry up and fuck me, soldier boy, I’m not gettin’ any younger down here,” he snickers, wriggling when Steve retaliates by pinching his side, forcing Bucky to stop his persuasive kneading of Steve’s ass in order to swat his hand away. He opens his mouth to make another cheeky comment about old men needing a break to catch their breath when all the air is punched clean from his lungs by one sharp, hard thrust of Steve’s hips. His cock, deliciously proportional to this new body Bucky had once regarded with such mistrust and sadness, spears deep inside of Bucky, dragging a rough shiver of pleasure from him that makes his toes curl. 

Steve leans up just enough to give Bucky a smug, shit eating grin and Bucky yanks him back down so he can kiss it away, only satisfied when Steve’s body blankets him once more. Steve digs his feet into the bed for leverage to fuck into Bucky and they both swallow back moans around clashing tongues and teeth, Bucky’s thighs clenched tight around bony hips and heart in his throat. 

He privately thinks it’s worth every single second of the near one hundred years they’ve waited to share this for the first time burn of being filled up with everything Steve has to offer. Steve is whispering soul aching words of love and happiness into Bucky’s skin as he rocks himself against the dark haired man, hand groping blindly until metal meets flesh and twines together like an anchor point for every single emotion voiced and shared between kiss reddened lips. 

Bucky loves Steve just as much at ninety eight as he did at six; but that love is different now because Steve is the sun and Bucky was once just a boy with fragile wings of wax and feather who has since become a man, soaring higher than ever on wings of bone and steel, made stronger by his love for the warmth and light of a distant shining star.

A comfortable heat spreads through Bucky as Steve rolls his hips against Bucky’s ass and he muffles a soft sigh of pleasure in the pale skin of Steve’s throat, licking away beads of sweat with long swipes of his tongue. His own cock is caged by his and Steve’s abdomens and Bucky shudders with pleasure at the slippery friction of unyielding muscle against hard flesh, doing his best to grind himself into that rough slide even as he rocks downwards to meet Steve’s thrusting, right hand rubbing encouragingly up and down Steve’s spine. 

Bucky’s hand remembers jutting knobs of bone and a meandering curve caused by Steve’s scoliosis and he traces the path Steve’s spine had once followed before sweeping gently down the strong, straight line it now took.

Sometimes Bucky misses the Steve he had grown up with, beautiful for his flaws and small enough to fold against his chest and shield from all the harshness of the world. This new Steve was far too big for Bucky to hide in his arms but there are days when Steve wakes up with lingering images of icy water flooding around him and cries for help that no one ever hears in an empty arctic wasteland and Bucky can chase away the darkness with reassuring words whispered into sweat damp blond hair and cool metal fingers soothing against feverish skin. He can’t hide Steve away from the world anymore but he can help him through the aftermath of its violence. 

It gives him a meaning and purpose that Bucky sorely needs after being stripped of his sense of self by Hydra. A needle on a compass that points him in the direction of home and happiness and belonging. 

His life had once been about the next target and the next mission, an endless blur of bloody faces and loss. Now his place is here with Steve, healing but also _helping_ with the gentle caress of metal that once meant death. 

“I love you,” Bucky whispers, back arching when Steve digs his knees into the bed and grazes across deeply buried nerve endings inside of Bucky, sending sharp sparks of pleasure to every distant edge of Bucky’s body. 

“I love you,” he cries again as Steve hits that spot over and over, surrendering easily to the desperate press of swollen lips against his own, clenching tight around the thick flesh filling him up and reaching every single dark, lonely corner of Bucky’s being with each gentle touch and glide of mouth and fingers over pale skin.

“I love you,” he says one more time when he comes, spilling his release between their bellies and shuddering at the spread of molten pleasure inside of him, words of need and happiness whispered clumsily against slackened lips.

Steve stays inside of him as they trade soft, sated kisses, Bucky’s bionic hand still held tight in his own and Bucky remembers what it is to feel loved. 

Bucky is ninety eight years old when he realizes the shine of the stars could never truly compare to the beauty of the man beside him with a smile like coming home and Icarus sheds his wings, finally content to walk amongst the world of men.

**Author's Note:**

> If Steve/Bucky and incoherent rambling about Sebastian Stan's beautiful face are your thing you can find me on tumblr at [samwilson.](http://samwilson.tumblr.com)


End file.
